Castles, bridges and other aspects of the Scottish Borders

Still waiting for the painter to repair the XS rear mudguard. But out and about today on the W800, decided to collect a picture of the old railway viaduct at Leaderfoot. A local landmark and a favourite of mine with the elegant tall and slender piers.


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There's nineteen arches in total and the bridge deck is 126' above the river Tweed. Which is running very low just now.

Opened in the 1860s to carry the Berwickshire Railway, closed to passenger trains just after WW2 and closed to all railway traffic in the 1960s. When I were a lad, the bridge was scheduled for demolition and to get onto it you had to ignore the Trespassing signs and climb a barbed-wire fence. But now, it's part of a local footpath.

There's three bridges at Leaderfoot. Unfortunately, could not photograph the one I stood on to take the pictures - shame, 'coz it's the most picturesque. But here's the modern bridge which now carries the main road:


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Every time I see a picture of a viaduct I think of this place we would often pass with the boat on the river when in dad's boat.

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This is the largest section of the Richmond Aqueduct over the Seneca river. It carried the old Erie Canal over the river. Later on they wanted to update the canal to carry larger barges and in stead of going over the river decided to dredge the river and use it as part of the canal. There is also a small section of it left on the other bank of the river.

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And this is the same span but from the shore. The nice mowed lawn to the right of the picture was the towpath for the horses or mules used to pull the barges. The section to the left of the picture shows where the wood lined trough for the barges was.

This aqueduct was the longest of the old canal at just over 840 feet long. I know of at least three more of much shorter spans within a few miles of my house. One of which they have relined with wood and actually have water in it over top of a creek that is part of a canal museum/park. Interesting to see a bridge with water in it running over top of a creek!

Had to find a picture!:

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Sorry about interrupting the thread about Scottish Borders!
 
Really cool; some engineer gets told "we gotta get a railroad across that gorge and all we got is these stink'n bricks to build with".
And to think they ran steam engines over that viaduct! Is it still in use?

When I see things like this I often feel that the people who designed and built things like that should, just like musicians do for songs they record, get royalties for their work. Say a penny a ton for every train that passes over it, including the weight of the train itself!
 
Really cool; some engineer gets told "we gotta get a railroad across that gorge and all we got is these stink'n bricks to build with".

Built using the local pink sandstone. Looks absolutely lovely when the bridge has rays of the setting sun on it.

KH - aqueducts are weird, a water-filled bridge over a river! There aren't any in the Scottish Borders but once we cruised in a canal barge over the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales. Don't ask me how to pronounce that. It's the longest and highest in Great Britain.

Standing on the small deck at the rear of the barge, the edge of the aqueduct was below the level of the deck. There was nothing between me and the ground well over a hundred feet down. Had a moment of something like acrophobia and had to grip the tiller and focus on looking ahead along the canal not downwards . . .
 
Standing on the small deck at the rear of the barge, the edge of the aqueduct was below the level of the deck. There was nothing between me and the ground well over a hundred feet down. Had a moment of something like acrophobia and had to grip the tiller and focus on looking ahead along the canal not downwards . . .
I probably would have broke off the tiller handle, me a heights do not get along too well!
 
Today, cool for early September. Alright, cold then.

But the Sun is out so thought it's time to avoid the showers and take some more pictures for this thread.

Headed to the Union Suspension Bridge. Opened in 1820, it spans the River Tweed so that one end of the bridge is in Scotland and the other in England. Sort of our equivalent of the Ambassador Bridge linking Canada and the USA? Well, not quite. The wooden deck can't take too much weight, so traffic is limited to one vehicle at a time. Probably one of the quietest border crossings.



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The last picture shows the toll cottage on the Scottish bank.
 
They were really built! Sometimes people buy one and renovate - takes a lotta time and probably a lotta money.
I used to spend a fair bit of time around a similar castle-ette near Strathaven.
Years later I was interested to see it being rebuilt and thought that would cost a bomb.
Not a bit of it - it did cost a lot, but the owner was clever enough to take advantage off every piece of grant money he could find from the various conservation and preservation bodies he could persuade.
The net result was it cost him next to beggar-all.
In return for all this Public Money he has to open it to the public for one, maybe two, days a year, so the hoi-polloi can see where their tax money was spent. I'm not sure if it's totally his to keep when he dies and it comes to passing it on. Maybe not, maybe so.
 
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. . . once again I am impressed with the beauty and well kept history of your country!

There was a sign on the lane saying 'This road will be closed from 1st October for at least 57 weeks.'

I'm guessing that means they're going to rebuild the bridge. Probably replace the timber deck. Of course, I have no idea what they plan do to the bridge. Only hope they don't ruin it. There is a preservation Society and they must have raised enough funding for major works.

Very pretty countryside Raymond - and so sunny!

We are lucky enough to live in a very rural area and it is pretty, largely due to nature being given a chance. With the Spring curtailed due to lock-down, I'm trying to make the most of all good days at this late part of Summer.

. . . the owner was clever enough to take advantage off every piece of grant money he could find from the various conservation and preservation bodies he could persuade.
The net result was it cost him next to beggar-all.

It sometimes seems that very wealthy people (I'm not saying the owner of the Strathaven castle) can attract very substantial public funding for projects which poor people would never get a sniff at. One very wealthy landowner in the Borders received allegedly 100% grant funding for a wood-chip mini-power-station on his estate. The fuel is of course free, the unit provides power for the landowner's own property and all his tenants and excess power can be sold to the National Grid.
 
I wish to thank you Raymond for the pictures and history of the borders here. If our plans had come to fruition, Pretty Pillion and I would be finishing our Scottish Vacation right now. We had planned on going this year for her birthday and for me to visit my ancestral homelands (Clan Elliott on my mother's side). We were to see Tattoo on the last night, then head up the eastern coast for some fish and then cut up the back roads to have some Walker's shortbread for us both and some McCallan for me. We were to head back down to the west and ride the Jacobite train and final visit would be to Dumfries (only because we live in Dumfries, Virginia and a buddy on another forum was to host us for a night). Evidently there is some green space there where lovers attend some sort of ceremony. Finally we head back to Edinburgh for our flight home. We were to spend 8 nights total seeing the area.

I hope this political virus will be done for next September; I really need to see more castles in person!
 
From time-to-time, like to nip up the Border at Carter Bar. It's not far away and often meet a few bikers up there. Sometimes even end up having a chat.


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Three lads out on H-Ds from Newcastle area for a few nights camping in southern Scotland. We all agreed this might be the last good weather for summer 2020.
 
Another nice outing Raymond! Pardon my ignorance on this, but I have a question for you. Corona virus aside, is the border between Scotland and England open for you to freely cross? Are there any limitations? I’m a little fuzzy on the distinction between them being two distinct nations and one unified country.
 
Corona virus aside, is the border between Scotland and England open for you to freely cross?

Coronavirus aside, the border is completely free and open. You pass a sign saying Welcome to England or Welcome to Scotland and that's it. No border posts, no passport required, no additional car insurance, no need for a health card. No limitations at all.

Some people choose to stop at Carter Bar to look at the view but most people just drive on past. There is a flutter of tourist interest, mostly English people or World tourists who have never been to Scotland before and want to mark the occasion. So to help them with that, in Summer there will usually be a piper busking in his tartan kilt. Och Aye!

I’m a little fuzzy on the distinction between them being two distinct nations and one unified country.

Uhm, well so am I. Forgive me, that's a joke.

I don't want to be political so I won't go into this in any depth. To all intents and purposes, the United Kingdom has been one country for over three hundred years. Over that time, many people would say that recognition of the distinct nations of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish has been mostly cultural and not political.

But there is an element of the population in Scotland, and in Wales and Ireland but then this could get too complicated, which seeks independence from the UK. In 2014 there was a referendum in Scotland. 44.7% of those who voted supported independence and 55.3% supported remaining part of the UK. Within about 10 minutes of the polls closing, there was renewed clamour for another referendum. Which supporters call IndyRef2 and opponents call The Neverendum. Because after all, if some people could just be persuaded to vote differently then Scotland might 'be a nation again' You'll have to imagine that piper/busker girding his pipes.
 
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